Televised programming presented on millions of televisions throughout the world is most often made possible from the proceeds derived from televised commercial broadcasting. For example, after a number of minutes of a given televised program, a variety of commercial broadcasts advertising everything from improved soap to automobiles are presented to the television viewer on behalf of the purchaser of the advertising time. Often, viewers do not wish to watch the commercial broadcasts, and sometimes, viewers even find certain commercial broadcasts annoying or offensive in some way. To avoid such commercial broadcasts, some television viewers temporarily stop viewing their televisions while they run a quick errand or obtain a snack. Other viewers, however, enjoy quickly selecting other channels for a very short viewing of the programming provided on other television channels during the period of the commercial broadcast. This process often called “channel surfing” allows the viewer to sample other programming offerings while avoiding an unwanted or undesirable commercial broadcast on the desired channel. However, a problem occurs when the viewer is surfing other channels for a period exceeding the commercial broadcast period, and consequently, the viewer misses a portion of the programming on the viewer's desired channel after the commercial broadcast has ended.
Prior methods have described skipping a commercial broadcast during some estimated fixed time interval. Other methods have eliminated commercial broadcasts by comparing present commercial broadcasts with memorized clips of the same commercial broadcast shown at a previous time. Still other methods have used the repetitive nature of commercial broadcasts to capture information about those broadcasts in order to eliminate those same commercials during subsequent showings. However, commercial broadcasts may vary in length causing difficulty with time-based methods. And, methods that rely on memorized clips or programming sequences from previously played commercials fail to detect or eliminate new commercials.
Additionally, an often undesirable aspect of commercial broadcasts is a noticeable increase in the audio volume level of the commercial broadcast as compared to the volume set by the viewer for the regular programming. Commercial broadcasters often cause the audio volume to be presented to users at a higher volume as compared to regular programming as a way of bringing commercial broadcasts to the attention of the user. It is known to have so called “smart audio” systems that detect changes in the audio volume level and that cause the volume to be maintained at the same level as the audio volume level set by the user for regular programming.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.